2015-12-17

If you're a University of Toronto student, or (more importantly) a prospective University of Toronto student, please be aware that the school is planning increase tuition rates.

The University of Toronto’s $1.8 billion endowment fund should divest from energy companies engaged in open-pit mining of bitumen in Canada, its advisory committee has recommended.

The committee was set up by President Meric Gertler in March 2014, in response to a petition from Toronto350, the university chapter of the larger 350.org movement, to completely divest from direct investments in fossil fuel companies within the next five years. University of Toronto reportedly has $32.4 million invested in fossil fuel companies, according to Saskatoon-based The Sustainability and Education Policy Network (SEPN).

In other words, for purely political posturing purposes, the University is planning to make less profitable investments which will impact their bottom line. Ultimately, both students and Ontario/Canadian taxpayers will end up impacted: by higher tuition rates, a University with fewer resources, or more tax dollars being needed to "invest in post-secondary education". But with half an eye to the Kate McMillan line "the opposite of diversity is university", let's see how the fossil fuel ban will be taking effect.

The endowment fund should determine a method to assess which fossil fuel companies “blatantly disregard the international effort to limit the rise in average global temperatures,” the committee advised.

The committee identified Exxon Mobil Corp. and Conoco Phillips, both of which have operations in Canada, and a number of coal companies as divestment targets.

In other words, as long as you have the politically correct views and opinions on a topic, you can be spared the dreaded punishment of having your stock value reduced by namby-pambys at the University of Toronto.

While we're at it, does this University of Toronto policy negatively impact their home province...?

While the committee made exceptions for fossil fuel companies that are demonstrating an effort to reduce their carbon emissions, it highlights "open-pit mining of natural bitumen in Canada, Arctic extraction or exploration, and thermal coal mining in Canada and the United States" as examples of companies the fund should steer away from, especially those that generate more than 10 per cent of the revenues from fossil fuel-mining activities.

"It’s true that there is some wiggle room, and the devil will be in the details," said Lascaris. "The 10 per cent of revenue threshold suggests that the major player from the tarsands sector would have to be divested by the endowment if the president accepts the recommendation."

So see? There's "some wiggle room"...as long as you're not one of those "embarrassing cousins from Alberta". Seeing as how the UofT receives money from the Province of Ontario, and that the Province of Ontario has long been the beneficiary of equalization payments stolen out of Alberta's coffers, Albertans have suffered to help the University of Toronto out.

So how do the little shitheads thanks us for all of our toil and sacrifice? By divesting from our economy and implying that we're ruining the planet (which, of course, we ain't). Meanwhile, the students who attend this university are instead contributing to a culture of imposition of freedom that actually does damage the planet...at the very least, that facet of the planet that we like to call human society.